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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5486745" data-attributes="member: 15538">WotC is not in the business of growing and selling 4e/DDI. They are in the business of making money. 4e is just one means to that end. In fact, it's all but inevitible that at some point, they will switch to 5e. As long as the D&D brand is valuable, it can be used for endeavors such as computer games, movies, cartoons, T-shirts, board games, and what-have-you... many of which are likely more profitable than RPGs, which are a niche. Keeping the PDFs available keeps the "literary classics" of RPGs alive. As the copyright holders of said classics, WotC has only to gain by remaining current in people's minds even of products written years ago.Another reason is that it shows old customers won't be "fired." If I were a 4e player, shouldn't I be nervous that WotC happily tossed the 3e game overboard when they were ready for a new product cycle?It also means there is a legal means to acquire those PDFs. Thanks to their legal unavailability, there is now an incentive for normally law-abiding, but lustful for vintage D&D individuals, to pirate. If WotC hates piracy so much, they should make it really easy to not be a pirate. It's not dilution. Nobody is going to avoid buying 4e to buy an AD&D manual, and they are only slightly likely to do so for a 3e manual. It  keeps people part of the D&D community. If I like 3e but I don't like 4e, once 3e becomes unavailable from WotC, I become on orphan. If it goes on long enough, I stop relating to D&D as strongly because D&D comes to mean 4e and not-3e. Then, when 5e rolls around, I'm less excited, and maybe I don't even buy 5e at all. This reason is probably what motivated Mike Mearls to post what he did. By abandoning 3e, WotC effectively created Pathfinder, and thereby created a situation where many of their fans may never "come home." This is the 21st century. The question is not whether IP law will change, but how and when. The ease of information exchange suggests it will be toward greater openness. With the OGL, WotC signalled they were ready to experiment with something new. With the GSL, they retreated back to the reactionary stance of the 1980s. By doing so, they are re-arming for a series of legal battles that no one wins. The best case for them is to preserve the status quo, and at some expense. The worst case is they lose a few cases and find themselves on the losing side of history.Finally, draconian acts have a chilling effect on a community. Is WotC content to have "consumers" or would they rather have fans?</blockquote>

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